Hubert Monteilhet (1928–2019)

Mai 1945 : libérée des derniers camps nazis, Elisabeth Wolf apprend qu'elle est fabuleusement riche et que Stan, son mari, est vivant.

Au départ, Stan ne fut qu'une liaison passagère comme tant d'autres. Mais très vite une passion dévorante lie Elisabeth, médecin célèbre, à Stan, joueur d'échecs sans fortune et beaucoup plus jeune qu'elle. C'est pour lui qu'elle a eu la force de vivre et de supporter ces terribles années.

Pour être plus belle à ses yeux, elle retarde les retrouvailles et consacre quelques mois à des soins de beauté.

Un soir, ils se rencontrent par hasard ; Stan se trouble, l'aime-t-il encore ? Mais Stan croit son épouse morte et propose à cette étrangère qui ressemble tant à sa femme un marché diabolique....… (more)

Despite the rather sensational title (upped from "Death at Frankfurt" in the original French to "Murder at the Frankfurt Book Fair" in English), this is not a murder mystery story. It is rather, as described by the subtitle, "a wicked, witty novel about the publishing of an international best seller."

This book is told in the form of diary entries from two different characters - Dominique Labattut-Largaud, a literature professor and fiction writer of limited success, and Cecile DuBois, a young librarian and former/current student of Labattut-Largaud who has a schoolgirl crush on him. Occasionally, an editor's note appears in the text of the book (as well as some editorializing that bookends the rest of the narrative). These are written by Monteilhet, who places himself as a minor character in his own book.

Things start out innocent enough, with both characters just writing about everyday occurrences of no particular importance. Panic first appears for Labattut-Largaud when he realizes that Cecile - with her uber-library skills - has made the connection between himself and the pseudonym he uses. Things only get worse when Labattut-Largaud, disappointed with his mediocre success and angry at his publisher, decides to plagiarize his next novel by using obscure texts written by Abbe Prevost. Cecile soon discovers this deception as well, forcing Labattut-Largaud into increasingly more absurd situations as he tries to temper the potential fall-out. The narrative follows as Labattut-Largaud's book takes hold in their hometown of Paris, France to his publisher's attempts to sell off translation rights to the highest bidder of each country at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Few books are written in the style of diary entries - and fewer still are well done this way. The two characters have distinctly different writing styles, and one of the points of humor in this book was reading one character's account of a specific event and waiting to see how the other character would then relate what happened, for Cecile and Labattut-Largaud often had diametrically opposed ideas of what occurred. Cecile's extreme idealism and Labattut-Largaud's extreme cynicism contributed greatly to the "wicked" and "witty" aspects of this book. Neither were particularly "likable" characters, as Cecile was far too self-righteous and preachy while Labattut-Largaud was far too cold and self-centered, but the book was enjoyable nevertheless - or perhaps because of this. My only complaint was the ending - clearly, we knew that a death was going to take place due to the title, but it seemed as though Monteilhet backed himself into a corner and saw no other way out. Also, in the end, it was as Labattut-Largaud complained about Monteilhet in his diary - Monteilhet could not help but be a moralist.

Still, all in all, this was a clever book that takes an inside look at writing, publishing, marketing, and selling books. As I mentioned above, do not be mistaken that this is a book for mystery lovers as it is most decidedly not. It will, however, entertain those who like character studies, epistolary novels, books about books, and anything written in a tongue-in-cheek style.… (more)